


Call

by michals



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-10
Updated: 2011-07-10
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michals/pseuds/michals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For this prompt at the kink meme:<br/><i>Either of them can’t sleep until he knows the other is safe.</i></p>
    </blockquote>





	Call

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt at the kink meme:  
>  _Either of them can’t sleep until he knows the other is safe._

"We're in this one princess." Eames calls down the hallway as loud as humanly possible.

Ariadne takes her bag from Arthur with a commiserating smile, Arthur just rolls his eyes. She disappears into her hotel room as Arthur walks towards Eames, who's hanging off of the door frame looking downright indulgent. Arthur brushes by him without as much as a glance.

Inside the room he puts his suitcase down on the bed and flips it open to reveal his wardrobe nicely folded and strapped down. He begins taking out each item individually and putting them away in the dresser next to the bed.

"Oh God you're one of those people? Of course you'd be." Eames says and plunks down on the other bed. His suitcase has been unceremoniously dropped at the foot of his bed, already spilling out of its zipper. "I've never actually seen anyone who uses the drawers in a hotel room."

"So you just live out of your suitcase?" Arthur asks, not even bothering to look at Eames as he unfolds a pair of socks.

"Who doesn't?" Eames punctuates the sentence by pushing off one shoe and flinging it as far away from him as possible. It lands with a 'thunk' somewhere near the television set. The second flies by Arthur's face as he leans in to grab a shirt. It knocks against the wall and down into the space beside Arthur's bed. Eames makes no effort in getting up to retrieve either of them, but instead grabs the remote and starts flipping through channels. Arthur doesn't comment, but decides that if Eames doesn't want his shoe now, he sure as hell isn't going to get it back later.

If it was up to Arthur, he'd rather be rooming with Ariadne, or Yusef. Or hell, even Yusef's cat. Ideally he'd be with Cobb, but Dom's not even staying at the same hotel. As far as the rest of the world is concerned Arthur, Eames and Ariadne are here for a telecommunicating conference and they've never even heard of Dominic Cobb.

Once he's done hanging up all his shirts and jackets - with as much huffing and eye rolling from Eames as he could manage - Arthur sets his briefcase up on the desk and starts pulling out schematics and files. The PASIV device is safely packed away in Dom's briefcase a mile down the road in the other hotel. Far too conspicuous to have all the tech and files together in one place. Arthur is filling in data on a timesheet when his phone rings.

"Hey, it's me." Dom sounds rough and tired on the other line. He took a red-eye from Melbourne to get here on time, and Arthur knows he doesn't sleep well on flights - without the proper medicinal aid, of course.

"You just check in?" Arthur asks and Cobb says yes and spits out a few numbers that Arthur puts into the timesheet.

"Nice hotel?" Dom asks, and Arthur can hear the jangle of the phone cord. Dom's on the hotel phone, no doubt down to his shirtsleeves in the bed. He'll turn the TV on to something mindless and order room service. Fish probably. Arthur almost wants to call the hotel and have them add a slice of cheesecake to his order. Dom's weakness, though he won't admit it and won't order it himself. When they room together Arthur takes it upon himself to sneak in the order when Dom's not paying attention, and when Arthur's Caesar salad and Dom's salmon comes up with a side of strawberry cheesecake Dom will sigh and give Arthur a look. And Arthur will smile innocently and turn back to his files, and a little while later a plate with half a piece of cheesecake will be placed by his elbow and he'll finish it off.

From the bed Eames barks out a laugh at something on the TV and Arthur can see in his peripheral vision two dirty black socks ending up somewhere near the first shoe.

"Room's nice, company could be better." Dom laughs on the other line as Eames says, "Hey!"

"Is that Cobb?" Eames asks. The bed makes a springy noise as he hops off it and pads over to Arthur, reaching for the phone. "Here, give me."

Arthur bats his hand away and tells him to fuck off. Dom's still laughing through the phone. "Play nice you two."

"Arthur's being a tightass Cobb!" Eames hollers in the direction of the phone, "Won't even let us check out the hotel bar!"

"We have to be at Mrs. Chandler's private room at the Greenwood spa at 6 AM tomorrow. We cannot get drunk the night before." Arthur says as he glares at Eames. Eames does finally shuffle back to the bed but not without sticking his tongue out.

"Don't kill each other, please." Dom says when Arthur turns back to the phone.

"It is like rooming with a twelve year old." Arthur mutters.

"It's just for this job Arthur, next time you can have your own room." Dom reassures him.

Arthur pauses for a second and almost says, "I'd rather room with you." but the moment's gone when Dom says, "Hold on a second."

In the background Arthur hears the clinking of plates and Dom talking with someone. After a minute Dom picks up the phone again. "Sorry about that."

"Room service?" Arthur asks and Dom makes an affirmative noise through a mouthful of food. Arthur can't help but smile a little.

"Oh that sounds great, where's the menu?" Eames asks over his shoulder, suddenly wrenching open drawers and digging around for a menu.

Arthur ignores him, "Anything good?"

"Hm, yeah, got the tuna this time. Not bad really. You guys eat yet?"

"No, Eames is looking for a menu." He holds the phone out a bit and says, "Caesar salad, no croutons." over his shoulder.

"No croutons? God you're a boring sod." Eames mutters as he flips through the pages.

"No croutons, as always." Dom says and Arthur can see the amused smirk on his face.

"It's stale bread Dominic; I just don't see the point." Arthur makes a note about the job on a spreadsheet.

"I know, I know." Dom huffs out a small laugh at the familiar argument.

It's then that Dom yawns and Arthur can make out the sounds of him putting the plate aside and settling back down into the bed. Arthur pushes away from the desk and leans back in the chair.

"You going to go to sleep soon?" he asks quietly.

"Yeah, thinking about it." Dom murmurs, sounding half asleep already.

"Oh my God you are going to see him tomorrow fucking morning princess, let the man go to sleep." Eames bellows, not bothering to move the room phone from his mouth, probably giving the poor person on the other end a heart attack.

Arthur shoots Eames a look and gets up from the chair to meander in the small hallway leading to the door.

"Want me to give you a wakeup call?" Arthur asks, trying to keep from being heard by Eames.

"Mm, you don't have to; I can have the front desk do it." Dom says and there's the click of the lamp going off.

"It's not a problem, you know that Dom." Arthur leans against the wall, tracing the stripes on the wallpaper with his toe. Dom only makes a sleepy noise in response and Arthur smiles to himself. "I'll call you tomorrow morning. 4 AM, alright?"

"Yep." Dom says, and then seems to drag himself awake again, "You going to call me tonight still?"

"No, you're tired. Go to sleep Dom, I'll talk to you tomorrow." Arthur tells him, and loosens his tie, not really looking forward to having to wait that long.

"No no, you have to call. Call."

"Dom, don't worry about it-" Arthur insists but Dom interrupts.

"Call, Arthur. Just do it." Dom says firmly. Arthur sighs a little and says, "Alright."

"Good." Dom settles back down. Arthur listens to him breathe for a moment, then asks softly,

"Are you okay?" The familiar question.

"Yeah, Arthur, I'm okay." Dom whispers back, seconds from sleep, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. Goodnight Dom."

"'Night Arthur."

Arthur holds on for a beat, waiting for Dom to hang up first. After the tell-tale beep he snaps his phone shut and returns to the room where Eames has removed even more clothes and sits in just his pants and his undershirt, sprawled on the bed like a starfish. Arthur unknots his tie the rest of the way and moves to hang it up.

"What was that all about?" Eames asks from his prone position on the bed.

"What was what all about?" Arthur asks, moving on to his cufflinks.

"That cutesy call. You're going to see each other in less than eight hours anyway."

"We were checking in." Is all Arthur will admit.

The calls started after Mal's death. Arthur can remember the first time, when he couldn't catch a plane to Paris in time to meet Dom arriving. He was held up at JFK with only about half his clothes packed in haste, his throat raw from holding back his own emotions and frantically angry at every airline that was currently overbooked. When he called Dom was overtired and wrung dry from crying, his voice only a croak. They didn't talk as much as Arthur listened intently to Dom's exhausted sighs and yawns while wringing his hands with worry. "Are you okay?" Arthur asked before Dom fell asleep. "Yeah, I'm okay." Dom said, and Arthur believed him.

It doesn't matter where they are now, if they're on a job or in the space between jobs, if they're nearby or countries apart, Arthur has to call. Just before they go to sleep, they call. "Are you okay?" "Yeah, I'm okay." And Arthur will let Dom sleep, knowing he's safe. Dom calls too, it's not just Arthur. Sometime after the first call, came the second call - after the fiasco with Mal, after the first month, after Dom realized he had to go back to work if he wanted any chance of making money, or of staying sane. In a hotel in Kenya, his shirt sticking to him in the heat, Arthur picked up the phone and Dom's nervous voice came to him from an ocean away. "Just checking in, see you made it there okay...You're okay, right?" "Yeah, I'm okay." And Dom will sleep, knowing Arthur's okay too.

Arthur still worries about the times when they can't call, when one sleeps while the other's in trouble. That's why he likes rooming together, why he wishes he could have swapped Eames out for Dom if only things had worked out that way. If Dom wasn't on the other side of the world when the job came in. In the same room Arthur knows Dom's okay, can roll over in his bed and look at the sleeping figure on the other side of the nightstand. Look at Dom in the few moments of peace he'll allow himself, face still tight but less tortured in sleep.

A knock on the door almost makes Arthur jump. When he looks to Eames the man doesn't seem to be making any effort to get up so Arthur shakes his head and answers it. He tips the bellboy and carts the tray of food inside, and Eames is suddenly on his feet at the sight of it. Arthur eats his salad while Eames devours his steak, constantly pausing to laugh at what's on the TV, and Arthur doesn't even realize for a whole run of __ that what he's craving is cheesecake.

Arthur doesn't so much convince Eames that they need to go to sleep as he suddenly turns the light off on him. There's about five minutes where they fight over the light switch - probably looking like a Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoon with the light flickering back on and off - before Arthur makes a very thinly veiled threat about messing up the number of zeros on his check for his cut of the job and Eames narrows his eyes, says "You wouldn't." and is met with Arthur's expert poker face. Eames plops down in bed like a sullen five year old.

Arthur lies in bed with his eyes closed for a full minute before he makes to grab his phone off the nightstand. He did say to call, Arthur thinks, nervous but at the same time guilty about needing to hear Dom's voice.

Eames makes a disgruntled noise as the light on the cell phone flares up in the pitch black room but Arthur ignores him. With every ring Arthur feels worse about waking Dom up, and he's about to hang up when Dom's sleep muffled voice picks up.

"Still okay?" He asks.

"Yeah, still okay." Arthur says, smiling despite himself.

"Good." Dom says and Arthur can almost hear the matching smile in Dom's voice. Dom hangs up and then Arthur.

Eames snorts from the other bed and mutters, "Pansies."

Arthur opens the drawer on the nightstand and throws the bible at him.


End file.
